10 Day Vlog Challenge

I've decided to challenge myself to upload 10 vlogs in 10 days on my youtube page (newfamilygal). This will really push me to be more creative with my outfits of the day and crafting. I'm reading an article seen on www.heartifb.com about treating blogging as though it's your day job.
I get discouraged when I see not many people visit my youtube videos or my blog, but I figured if I dedicated more time and effort, it will truly be a fun little community for me, so this blog will be seeing a lot more attention as well. I enjoy blogging, so I really need to make time for it.
I'm going to concentrate on the 10 vlogs in 10 days, then I will give myself a blog challenge. Side note : Check out mamushkamarie on blog spot. Oh my word - LOVE HER!!

Never

This is why you never buy pre-made cookies from The Dollar Store.

Jeans to Skirt

Hey everyone! I've been checking out sewing blogs quite a bit lately - I can't get enough of them! I found this quick, easy idea on one of them. Take an old pair of pants/jeans that you don't wear anymore for whatever reason, cut on the seam between the legs, cut the length you want, then insert fabric. One idea that I found on a separate blog was to cut in four (4) different "V" shapes, so that would be an additional two (2) on the side. I thought it was unnecessary, so I didn't do that, but once I put the skirt on, I could see why. Since they were once pants, they were kind of wide at the hip then narrowed out in a funny shape towards the bottom when on. I'll definitely do this again, but with the two extra pieces on the sides.

One down, a million to go!

As I may or may have not mentioned, I can't wait to start an online boutique.

There were a million tiny steps to proceed with the process, and a big one was having a dress makers dummy...they are so expensive!
So, I searched online and saw how to make my own...so I'm proud to present my own dressmakers dummy!
I'll be making another one tomorrow of my good friend, which will be a small size and will help me gauge body types when I'm making clothes and/or creating cute vintage outfits.
I'm excited to share this with you all, it's the beginning of a new chapter for me...!

Overcast Sunday

It's an overcast Sunday, my fiance is watching football after we had a large, yummy breakfast. I think today will be nothing but relaxation and coffee, and I'm ok with that!

xoxo
Miss Irish

Busy Bloggin'

She's baaaaack!

Yay, we finally got internet back at the house!
Stay tuned this weekend, I will be doing posts, posts, posts and MORE POSTS!

xoxo

One Year

It's officially my one-year anniversary of having a blog!
I have not been doing that well lately with posting things, but I have been doing a lot of crafts at home - lots of scrapbook pages and helping the girls out with creating their own crafts.
I had a fabulous weekend away to my fiance's brothers house for the weekend, and it was nice to celebrate my birthday that way.
Chris got me a digital photo printer for my birthday, I can't wait to use it! I now have a craft room, yes, an actual CRAFT ROOM now, I set up the desk so far and am just organizing things...can't wait to post pics and videos of my crafting & vintage endeavors, so stay tuned!!
xoxo
Miss Irish

I soooo heart vintage!

Ok, so my surprise that I mentioned earlier is...I'm starting my own online vintage boutique! I'm so very excited and I have been dreaming about this for years. I absolutely love looking at blogs, my favorites of which I've posted a few posts down. Check it out! I'm really coming into myself on the crafting realm, and excited to put some hard work and a love of vintage fashion into making the world a cuter place, one outfit at a time!
So, my first vintage "quirky" piece is the necklace at your right -->
I posted this on ebay about a week or so ago, and decided this would be my dipping-my-toe-into-selling-vintage pool. If the necklace sold, I'd post a few more items...if those sold, then I would just keep posting more and then go onto my own website. I'm doing a lot of research right now, not just the vintage fashion, but what's selling right now, looking around online at prices, looking at my local thrift stores, getting prices for business cards, reading books on women in business, etc. I really enjoy doing research, so this is actually all fun for me!
That's my big surprise...what do you think? I'll be posting items on here as well as my facebook page so you all can keep updated on my new vintage world.
Great night to you all and God bless!!

xoxo

I heart her!

I stumbled across a show on mtv.com called Downtown Girls...I nearly slipped off my bed when it's discovered by me that the lead lady, one Shallon Lester (really?) is a writer for Glamour.com.
I found her personal blog, posted here shallononline.com for your enjoyment. She's cute. She's witty, understands she's awkward and is a California girl...but most importantly, doesn't have an annoying or whiney voice. Big plus with me. So check out her show, check out her blog, I think you'll enjoy!

xoxo

Just Scrappin'

After I made my wreath, I did a few scrapbook pages, then arranged them all into a cute binder from my mom:

This one is of my best friend and her her husband on their wedding day...she's not a traditionalist, so instead of the white dresses and pictures of cake, I decided to go with a spring theme...I found the butterfly pattern a scrapbook magazine my mom gave me, then added a bunch of flower cut outs, layered in two's and three's.



Here is a clost up of the cutouts. Very simple to do, and very cute.

I got the idea from the cover of a magazine my mom gave me (not the same magazine that provided the butterfly pattern), so I layed them side by side so you could see a magazine idea and a homemade version of it.

I found these three hiking photos and wanted to do a page...I got the tree cut-out idea from a magazine, thought it would be a cute idea for a hike page...I did some journaling, by hand, around the curvature of the tree, and in some funky lettering, labeled the page "Feather Falls 2009"

Hope you all enjoyed the pages I did, I had a lot of fun, just ran out of time. Show me your pages!!

xoxo

Miss Irish

Hand-made wreath

Happy Sunday!
I've been crafting today, thought I'd share the fruits of my labor - have to go start dinner so please enjoy!

Books, Books, Books

Up past my bedtime adding fabulous books onto my amazon account

I have a surprise...

I'm busy sewing and crafting today for an upcoming EXCITING adventure for myself...stay tuned for the fabulous surprise!

More Blogs I heart

So to make up for the fact that I'm so lame and not blogging much, I'm going to post some of my favorite blogs.
Due to the fact that my summer is SOOO busy @ work, I've only been doing a few videos on my youtube channel, newfamilygal, so you can check those out as well.
I may have posted some of these blogs as my favorites before, so I apologize...enjoy them as much as I do!

http://lovelylittlethingsblog.blogspot.com/
http://lisatutmanoglesby.typepad.com/
http://www.amyconard.typepad.com/
http://candimandi.typepad.com/
http://www.rachiesplace.com/
http://racheldenbow.blogspot.com/
http://www.lunevintage.blogspot.com/
http://colormekatie.blogspot.com/

A month?!

Wow - it's been almost a month since I last posted?
Let's see, what have I been up to?
1. Camping
2. Boating & fishing (way fun!)
3. Bar-b-que's
4. Sunburns
5. Learning to play dominoes (Slappin' Bones)
6. Graduations
7. Neglecting laundry

I'll have to post some pics soon, but I haven't had hardly ten minutes to myself for weeks, so no telling how soon "soon" will be! :o)

Lovely Saturday

Hello all!
I'm just checking in, I had a lovely Saturday so far. Chris had a late, late, LATE softball game last night, we didn't leave the park until nearly 2 a.m., just hanging out with some work mates. So of course bedtime was super late, but we woke up early.
I wasn't feeling so well, still kind of a wonky tummy, but we relaxed around the house, I did some laundry, then we went to pick up my fabulous almost sister-in-law and went to an awesome lunch of yummy fish and chips and great conversation. Four hours later, we came home, I napped, watching an episode of The Office (The Chump) and now Chris and I are going to marathon play Phase10 with preztels :o)

Lovely weekend to you all!
xoxo
Miss Irish

Garden

I thought this would be a fun post to look back on...


Pictured is our little flower area...we switched these out once before as we found the little cement holders we have the flowers in don't retain enough water to actually GET to the flowers...now we drown them and it's worked so far!

Aww...my little veggie garden I'm so proud of. We have two types of tomatoes, greens, a tiny little strawberry plant and some onions Chris planted during Mother's Day weekend.

This is our little backyard tree....I love how Chris planted the flowers around it. Simple, but very cute.

Another little planter area...Chris got these bricks from my dad, and created a little corner of gorgeous plants. My favorites are the Breath of Heaven's, at the end.

Couldn't resist taking this cute pic of Miss :o)

Where I spend 8+ hours of my day...

Evenin' chicklets! So this may be boring to some (most) of you, but I decided to show a photo of my desk at work! Considering I sit here a majority of my day, this is a huge part of my life and I wanted to share with all of you!
Pictured is what my desk basically looks like on any given time of day...but usually with more papers! I didn't clean up my area for the picture. It's all real, all the time, baby! A quick little tour...clearly, my computer with my oh-so-comfy keyboard. I have a little tower on the right side of the computer, facing, that has pens, highlighters and paperclips, respectivally, in the three-tiered drawer. On top of it are some sticky notes and a photo of my co-workers baby (my bean!). To the left is my coffee cup and some animal crackers. I also have a dictionary and then other random work stuff.

Here is a face-on close up of what I literally look at all day everyday. Tres chic, no? :o)

What does YOUR workspace look like?!

Scrapbook Pages

Above is a close up page of the pages I did for the marathon Chris and myself did in Sacramento last weekend. I had some spare ribbon lying around, so I decided to boarder the page on the inside, just for some difference and some texture to the page.

On the left are the tags we wore on our shirts in the race, as well as the timers we had on our shoes with a parking pass. Just some momento's I wanted to save as well as some pictures.

I like this page - I had some cute paper of color crayons and thought it would be cute as a school page of the girls. I used pictures of Zina doing her mission project, as well as Lizzy on her way to school.

While Zina was doing a girl scout activity, we took Elizabeth with us to Table Mountain. It was a gorgeous day, kids were flying kites, there was a nice soft breeze. I played up on the wild flower picture of Elizabeth and made some flowers of my own. I found that cute idea in one of my mom's scrapbook magazines. The flowers will also be very cute if you use ribbon instead of paper.

This is a close up of the flower I did. It was very easy and took no time at all! I sewed thread into the button holes just to give it a more finished, put-together look.